Ex Parte Johri et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Oct 24, 2017

13561113 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 24, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O.Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
13/561,113 07/30/2012 Vijeta Johri 336845.01 5009
69316 7590 10/26/2017
MICROSOFT CORPORATION
ONE MICROSOFT WAY
REDMOND, WA 98052
EXAMINER
SANTOS-DIAZ, MARIA C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
3689
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
10/26/2017 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address(es):
u sdocket @ micro soft .com
chriochs @microsoft.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte VIJETA JOHRI, AMAR NALLA,
and MAD AN G. NATU
Appeal 2015-003674
Application 13/561,113
Technology Center 3600
Before JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, BIBHU R. MOHANTY, and
SHEILA F. McSHANE, Administrative Patent Judges.
MOHANTY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The Appellants seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final
rejection of claims 1—20 which are all the claims pending in the application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
SUMMARY OF THE DECISION
We REVERSE.
Appeal 2015-003674
Application 13/561,113
THE INVENTION
The Appellants’ claimed invention is directed to a multi-tenant
hosting system that receives business data and tenant-identifying data from a
tenant that is partitioned within a database (Spec., para. 8). Claim 1,
reproduced below, is representative of the subject matter on appeal.
1. A computer-implemented method of servicing a data
manipulation request in a multi-tenant data store, each tenant being an
organization with multiple users, comprising:
displaying a tenant creation administrator display with user
input mechanisms that receive user inputs to create a given tenant in a
business data application that has at least one other tenant, other than
the given tenant;
displaying a security administrator designation display with
user input mechanisms that receive user inputs identifying a client at
the given tenant as a security administrator that identifies security
rules for users associated with the given tenant;
receiving a data manipulation request, in the business data
application, from a requesting client including tenant identification
data identifying the requesting client as being from the given tenant;
and
servicing the data manipulation request, using a computer
processor, from the multi-tenant data store that stores first data in
association with the given tenant and second data in association with
the at least one other tenant, the first data for the given tenant being
partitioned in the multi-tenant data store from the second data
for other tenants, based on the associations, to restrict access to the
first data by the at least one other tenant, the data manipulation
request being serviced by confining the data manipulation request to
data stored in association with the given tenant, based on the tenant
identification data.
THE REJECTIONS
The following rejections are before us for review:
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Appeal 2015-003674
Application 13/561,113
1. Claims 1—18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by Astete et al. (US 2010/0138830 Al, published June 3, 2010)
(“Astete”).
2. Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable
over Astete and Narad (US 2007/0143546 Al, published June 21, 2007).
FINDINGS OF FACT
We have determined that the findings of fact in the Analysis section
below are supported at least by a preponderance of the evidence.1
ANALYSIS
The Appellants argue that the rejection of claim 1 is improper because
the cited prior art fails to disclose portions of the claim limitation in the
claim for
servicing the data manipulation request, using a computer
processor, from the multitenant data store that stores first data
in association with the given tenant and second data in
association with the at least one other tenant, the first data for
the given tenant being partitioned in the multi-tenant data store
from the second data for other tenants, based on the
associations, to restrict access to the first data by the at least
one other tenant, the data manipulation request being serviced
by confining the data manipulation request to data stored in
association with the given tenant, based on the tenant
identification data.
(App. Br. 6—9, emphasis added).
1 See Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988)
(explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the
Patent Office).
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Appeal 2015-003674
Application 13/561,113
In contrast, the Examiner has determined that the rejection is proper
and that the argued claim limitations are shown by Astete at paragraphs 33,
36, 42, 69, 74—76, 80, 81, 92, and 146 (Ans. 2-6).
We agree with the Appellants. The Examiner has first determined that
the claim limitation drawn to “the first data for the given tenant being
partitioned in the multi-tenant data store from the second data for other
tenants” is non-functional descriptive material used to describe the data
stored (Ans. 3). We disagree with this determination because the cited claim
limitation for the “the first data for the given tenant being partitioned in the
multi-tenant data store from the second data for other tenants” goes not to
the mere content of the data fields, but rather to how the data is stored in a
partitioned manner.
The Examiner has cited to the argued claim limitations as being
shown by Astete at paras. 33, 36, 42, 69, 74—76, 80, 81, 92, and 146, but we
disagree with these findings. For instance, Astete at paragraph 42 discloses
that components can be partitioned into three groups including network
nodes, virtual host nodes, or storage nodes, but there is no specific disclosure
of the storage nodes being partitioned from each other as claimed. Further,
this cited portion fails to disclose confining the data manipulation request to
data stored in association with the given tenant, based on the tenant
identification data. As a further example, Astete at paragraph 146 discloses
a Customer Table 5201 with Customer ID, but there is no specific disclosure
that the data accessed is partitioned in the manner claimed. For this reason,
the rejection of claim 1 and its dependent claims is not sustained. The
remaining claims contain limitations similar to the ones addressed above,
and the rejection of these claims is not sustained for the reasons given above.
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Appeal 2015-003674
Application 13/561,113
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
We conclude that Appellants have shown that the Examiner erred in
rejecting the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) and 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
listed in the Rejections section above.
DECISION
The Examiner’s rejection of claims 1—20 is reversed.
REVERSED
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